I’m really trying to get a little healthier in a lot of ways. I know that “get a little healthier” isn’t very specific so I actually have a few areas that I’ve narrowed down as things that I need to work on:

I don’t sleep as much as I feel like I need – target sleep hours = 8 hours

I don’t manage my stress too well – need to define this a bit

I’m not active enough – daily steps goal = 10,000 steps

What I’m lacking in accomplishing these goals is some motivation. I’ve promised myself some rewards, I’ve tried affirmations, I’ve researched goal setting – I’m just not very healthy motivated. But I found this website achievemint.com that will pay you for health activities. I’ve researched this a bit and have found real people who’ve made some cash for their healthy activities. I’m not meaning some big, get rich cash payout but rather some small change like $25. I’ll admit, it’ll take quite a bit of healthy work to reach that $25 but if it was easy, then I’d figure out a way to get it over and done with and not really accomplish anything.

The way it works is by connecting health apps that you currently use – for me this is for my Fitbit Alta and MyFitnessPal – once your apps are connect it imports data from these apps and rewards you points for your healthy activities. For me, it imported all my activity all the way back to 2012! The first activity in my data history that it rewarded me points for was in July 2013; so it gave me points even before I even started participating in their program.

From looking at my activity which it imported it looks like I’ll be able to get point for a lot of different activities:

Checking in to a church

Checking in to a scenic lookout

Checking in to a park

Walking

Sending out a health related tweet

Running – (I don’t run often; I wonder what was chasing me!)

Checking in at a campground

Biking

Weighing myself

Sleeping – (finally get to earn some money for sleeping – yay!)

Logging food – (on MyFitnessPal)

Right now I’m at about 3,000 points so I have a longs ways to go to reach the magical 25,000 points where I can earn my first $25. But I figure if I get motivated and do more of these activities that I’ll be able to reach it within the next 4 months-ish.

I’m going to connect my Twitter account and my Foursquare account to it as well and see if I can motivate myself to post more healthy tweets, and possibly check in more at some of the places where it gives me points.